Spent the full day travelling overland, through the Forfitall Forest (?).
Encounter a couple of backwoods bandits caught Torsten in a trap in a clearing just before the river and then started fighting the rest of us. Our group took them down but, twice we needed to revive Mel with healing magic, as they brought him precariously close to death. People are very ruthless here in Mares, it seems. On the other side of the river I fell in a similar trap, and another bandit came to attack us. He too was dispatched by the rest of the team.
Made it across the river by some boards that had been set up (since the bridge had been destroyed). We were trying to move pretty quickly because we could hear a small military outfit marching behind us going in the same direction, seemingly Shallick soldiers. Dirge scouted back and found that they made camp on the other side of the river.